Yosemite: What’s in a name change?

The National Historical Landmark directly in front of the Ahwahnee Hotel on February 26, in Yosemite. The new concessionaire for Yosemite National Park is Aramark which won a bid for the 15-year contact over current contractor Delaware North. Delaware North is claiming intellectual property rights which it purchased in 1993 for the names of several hotels, Curry Village, Badger Pass Ski Area area and the name, “Yosemite National Parks.” Signage will have to be changed or covered when Aramark takes over. The National Park Service and Aramark have decided to rename the contested properties rather than pay the requested $50 million by Delaware North.

The National Historical Landmark directly in front of the Ahwahnee...

If history teaches us anything, it’s that somebody probably ought to trademark “The Majestic Hole.”

Because sure as you’re born, if the folks who operate the Grand Canyon concession for the National Park Service, Delaware North, ever lose that job, they’re probably taking the name with them. Say goodbye to Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon Railway, “Grand Canyon Suite” and the Grand Canyon Facebook page. More than half of the helicopter tour operators in Las Vegas will have to change their names.

If that seems like an impossibility, ponder that you can no longer check in at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. Or Curry Village. As of March 1 they became the Majestic Yosemite Hotel and Half Dome Village, respectively.

(There were probably guests who checked into the Ahwahnee on a Monday and had to check out of the Majestic Yosemite Hotel on Wednesday, which makes stealing the bath robes less of a heist and more doing them a favor.)

It’s been described in The Chronicle as “a messy trademark spat between the park and the outgoing concessions operator.” Truly, it seems like little more than a scorched-earth policy: Delaware North lost the contract as the main operator at Yosemite National Park, so it decided to take some of the park’s oldest and best-known names with it, including the Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village, Badger Pass (now Yosemite Ski and Snowboard Area), Wawona Hotel (now Big Trees Lodge) and Yosemite Lodge (now Yosemite Valley Lodge). Supposedly, the company even owns the name Yosemite National Park for commercial purposes, so you won’t find that name on T-shirts at the gift shop.

Consider also the Kennedy Space Center, once the epicenter of America’s space program that now houses massive displays of equally massive rockets, launch pads, landing vehicles and the retired Space Shuttle Atlantis. If Delaware North, which oversees the center’s visitor complex, loses the contract, will we find out they trademarked Saturn V, Mercury VII and Apollo 11 (although not Apollo 13, because Ron Howard already got that)? Tourists at Kennedy Space Center would have to buy shirts for Kronos V, Hermes VII and, well, still Apollo-something —the Greeks and Romans used the same name, so NASA would have to rename it Majestic 11.

National Parks and other public historical landmarks were protected for the people, despite the fact that some corporation wanted to profit from the short-term natural resources or land at the expense of long-term heritage. Logging companies wanted to turn redwoods in Humboldt County that were older than Christianity into 2-by-4s and railroad ties; developers wanted to build homes in Yellowstone; and Walt Disney himself wanted to mow down enough trees in parts of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park to build a ski resort. (You can thank the Sierra Club for stopping that last one.)

And while, yes, many of the examples cited here were geographical names assigned by the government (and therefore supposedly harder to appropriate using a trademark), we live in an age where increasingly it’s accepted that the person or entity with enough money can buy naming rights to almost anything. Changing the heritage (including the names) of public sites of great historical or cultural importance should be beyond the reach of corporations. It should be up to lawmakers and citizens to protect these treasures — except, apparently, when companies with enough money and lawyers can push it into the courts.

(I’m a bit surprised President Obama and the National Park Service were able to change the name of Mount McKinley back to Denali. I figured General Motors would have locked that down years ago.)

The park superintendent for Yosemite, Don Neubacher, has said on the park’s site online that the changes “will not affect the historic status of the facilities,” but there’s no way to know the long-term effects (or if Neubacher will need to change any of the logos on his ranger uniform).

What’s at stake is more than just historic status. Generations of families from here and around the world have built memories on places called Ahwahnee, Wawona and Badger Pass. Those memories are what drive people to want to protect Yosemite, as well as other sites of great importance. It’s going to be a while before anyone says, “Hey, remember that great trip to the Majestic Yosemite Hotel?”

“But really,” you ask, “how important is it? It’s just a name.”

Tell to the couple who just posted a sunset selfie from the South Rim of The Planetary Pothole.